Houseplants are a wonderful way to brighten up your home all year round, but making sure they’re kept safe from insects is important. Former Great British Bake Off champion and keen gardener Nancy Birtwhistle appeared on ITV’s This Morning to share how she keeps her plants blooming and free of bug attacks.
Nancy said: “I thought I’d have a little mention about houseplants as well because they can get fruit flies around them [and] sometimes they can get an attack of aphids.” Aphids are sap-sucking insects that can cause plants to lose their vigour, distort their growth, and often excrete a sticky substance (honeydew) where sooty moulds can grow, according to the Royal Horticultural Society. Most plants can be susceptible to aphid attacks.
How to keep bugs away from houseplants
Nancy explained that she noticed a handful of green flies attached to the leaves of her houseplants. Although she’s not a fan of spraying her houseplants, Nancy attested that these insects need to be gotten rid of from the plants to continue thriving.
She suggested a simple solution to do the job, which can be mixed in a spray bottle. Nancy explained: “I’ve got 500ml of water. Just a little, about a teaspoon of eco washing up liquid. A teaspoon of oil.”
Host Cat Deeley asked: “Any oil?”
Nancy replied: “Any cooking type oil. And that just makes it stick. And then again like, the whole cloves over there. This is clove bud oil.”
Host Ben Shephard pointed out that the oil is a concentrated version of cloves, to which Nancy replied: “Yeah, and they hate it. And so again what you’ve got here is a little bug spray.
“For your houseplants or in your greenhouse.”
Nancy further explained why clove oil is a good solution to use to ward off insects. She wrote on her website: “I have further enhanced the mix with the addition of clove bud oil. Clove bud oil contains eugenol which repels insects and helps to control fungal disease and indeed I found this to be the case when some of my rose leaves covered in a white fungus disappeared after just one spray.”
She urged plant parents to apply the homemade solution to plants after the sun has gone down. She warned to not spray the plants during the day when other insects such as bees, wasps, butterflies and ladybirds are out and about.
You should also never spray a plant that’s in direct sunlight as “the spray will scorch the leaves”. The RHS explained that using natural products like oils are a good addition as they are surfactants.
They act by smothering rather than poisoning pests when they land on the plants.
